


Splintered Trees

by ErikaWilliams



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Gen, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), M/M, Warlock - Freeform, Zombie Apocalypse, crowley has a soft spot for kids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-03
Updated: 2019-08-03
Packaged: 2020-07-30 07:27:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20093536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ErikaWilliams/pseuds/ErikaWilliams
Summary: When a second apocalypse strikes, Crowley has a stop to make before he and Aziraphale find a safe place to wait it out.





	Splintered Trees

Aziraphale sat on the entryway floor, his back pressed up against the door as the day's last red light slanted through the windows. Too dangerous to try to turn the lights on. Electricity was like a magnet to those… things. Not that there was much to illuminate. A few cobwebs in the corners of the ceiling. A fine layer of dust covering the stairs. The table he could barely make out down the hall. It didn't look like anyone had been here for a long time. He wasn't sure if he should be relieved by that or not.

He heard a faint moaning sound from behind him and the scratching of nails along polished wood. He switched his full attention to Crowley who was pacing the perimeter of the foyer as if he could force the walls to talk to him. Demand from them where the former inhabitants had gone. He should probably distract Crowley. Give him something else to think about. Maybe if Crowley cleared his head, he could get a new perspective on the situation.

“You don't suppose it's us, do you?” he asked as a second groan joined the first. It would not be good for them if more of those things were gathering.

“What's us?” Crowley stopped at the bottom of the stairs, one hand on the railing. He looked like he was expecting someone to come running on down them.

“What's going on out there.” Aziraphale winced as something wet thudded against the door and slid slowly down the expanse. “We did stop the last Apocalypse. Maybe God decided to try again with something a little more difficult to deal with?”

“Have you tried healing them?” Crowley asked as he resumed his pacing. He peered down the open hallway towards the kitchen.

“They try to bite me every time I get close to them,” he reminded Crowley. He wished Crowley would stay still for just a moment. His footsteps echoing through the empty building were sure to attract more of those things. “We know what happens when they bite humans. What do you supposed would happen if they bit one of us?”

“I don't know,” Crowley said, stopping in the middle of the foyer. Maybe he was finally starting to accept that no one was here. “I know a few former acquaintances I wouldn't mind offering up for experimentation.”

“Yes, well...” The door shook behind him. They really should think about barricading the doors and windows and moving further into the house. Instead, Crowley sank down on the ground next to him.

“So...” Crowley said sounding more despondent than he had in years. The last time he had heard Crowley that sad was back in that bar, shortly before the almost Apocalypse. “No one's home.”

“Doesn't look like it.” The moans were getting more incessant. He heard at least six distinct sources now. Crowley needed to make that decision for himself though. “It doesn't look like anyone's been home for years.”

“Where do you think they went?” The door shuddered behind their backs.

“Maybe they went back to America,” he suggested softly. Crowley needed to have some hope. This whole thing had been slowly dragging them both down for weeks. “Maybe whatever this is hasn't spread that far.”

“They have lots of big farming equipment over there. The Americans should be fine.”

“Yes,” he encouraged Crowley, largely because he wanted to get away from the door. He wanted to believe it though. He wanted to believe that the family was safe and okay. It was obvious no one had been in this house for several years. “I'm sure all of them are safe in America.”

“Come on,” Crowley said, pushing away from the door just as one of those things thudded forcefully into it. The door shouldn't be able to withstand much more of that treatment. Crowley snapped his fingers before he started up the stairs

When Aziraphale stepped away and turned around, a large thick bar was barricading the door. That should keep them out at least for the evening. Maybe by morning they would have found something else to go after. He took one last look at the front door before following Crowley up the staircase.

He hadn't been in the house much before, but Crowley seemed to remember every inch despite the lack of humanity's remnants. He seemed to be trying to touch things that were no longer there. Crowley stopped at one of the large windows overlooking the front door. 

“What is that thing doing to my car?” Crowley asked, leaning closer to the window to get a better look. Aziraphale stepped beside him, unsure of how much comfort Crowley needed at the moment. He didn't want to overstep his bounds, but Crowley was clearly effected by the emptiness of the house. The car was just another way to distract himself before he was finally ready to admit that where was nothing more for him to do there.

“It looks like it's walking into it.” He watched as the creature awkwardly shuffled into the side of the car. “Repeatedly.”

“It's getting blood all over my windows.”

“You can miracle it away in the morning,” he reassured Crowley. He wanted to reach out to him, but Crowley had already turned around and was walking further down the hall. He tried to forget about that thing that had once been human trying in vain to shuffle through Crowley's Bentley.

Crowley finally ducked into one of the rooms and Aziraphale only hesitated a moment before following him, not sure of what they would find. The furniture had been left behind, stripped of all the trappings, nothing to show that any one had ever lived there. The back window had a nice view of the overgrown garden, and he could just see one of those things crawling through the shrubbery. Luckily, it was nobody they knew, so he didn't even bother to tell Crowley about it.

“This used to be my room,” Crowley said, placing his hand almost reverently on the bed's footboard. So he supposed the room connected to this room had probably been the boy's. “I used to wonder what it would take to get you up here.”

“That wouldn't have been very proper, what with the boy-”

“Warlock,” Crowley corrected him harshly.

“-Warlock being in the next room over.”

“I wouldn't have been able to get you up here even if Warlock was in the next wing over.” Crowley miracled some sheets, a blanket and two pillows for the bed before sitting down. Soft groans were drifting up from the garden, so Aziraphale checked to make sure the windows were latched. Not that any of those things could make it to the second story.

“Well, I'm here now,” he said before sitting down on the bed next to Crowley, hands clasped between his knees. “Care to tell me about it?”

“Those are some long stories.”

“I think we have plenty of time, dear.”


End file.
